I've always preferred Ken over Ryu, even when they were virtually the same character in the old-school version of SF2 (hey, his throws looked cooler). When the differences between the two were more noticeable in future SF games, the differences in Ken actually made a difference.
Take "Super Street Fighter 2" for example. Ryu's fireball got beefed up a little bit, and if you do a half-circle motion you get a red fireball. So what? In a Ryu vs. Ken match, Ken's fireball will still nullify it, rendering it useless. Ken's improved dragon punch, however, is something worth having. It covers more ground, and is lightning fast (plus if you hit them with it up close, you get a 2-hit combo out of it).
Now let's move on to Street Fighter Alpha 3. Now I'll admit, Ryu's ShinKuu TatsuMakiSenPuuKyaku is a cool super move. You can use it to punish people that jump around too much. But, Ken can essentially do the same thing with his ShinRyuKen. Ryu's ShinKuu HaDouKen was pretty lame, in my opinion. You can see it coming from a mile away, and has about 10% chance of actually working on me in a fight. Ken's ShouRyuReppa was much more effective.
Now on to X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Once again, Ryu's S. HaDouKen is predictable and easily avoided/blocked. Ken's ShouRyuReppa can easily be thrown into a combo, and it does massive damage. Plus if someone is trying to super jump over you, you can totally rape them. The other distinct advantage Ken has over Ryu is the fact that Ken's HaDouKens travel diagonally downwards when done in the air. I've found that most Ryu users tend to try to fireball you to death, so all you have to do is jump straight up and blast them a few times. At this point, they might try to jump at you, then all you have to do is a dragon punch. Unlike Ken, Ryu can't dragon punch in the air. If you want to be really cheap with Ken, you can super jump backwards and throw multiple fireballs before you land & build your super meter. Ken also has some wicked combos, and most of your basic 8-12 hit ones are easy to pull off. I can do an infinite combo with him, although I've been hit for doing it before...lol.
So that's about it. If you are a Ryu user and like being cheap with HaDouKens, you should try playing me, and I'll put a stop to it real quick.
But by all means, feel free to disagree with me. :biggrin:
(Edited by Troy88 at 8:55 am on May 7, 2002)
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